The Parish Clerk (1907) eBook

duties was to cense the people in their houses.
He was an actor of no mean repute, and took a leading
part in the mysteries or miracle-plays, concerning
which we shall have more to tell. He even could
undertake the prominent part of Herod, which doubtless
was an object of competition among the amateurs of
the period. Such is the picture which Chaucer
draws of the frivolous clerk, a sketch which is accurate
enough as far as it goes, and one that we will endeavour
to fill in with sundry details culled from medieval
sources.

Chaucer tells us that Jolly Absolon used to go to
the houses of the parishioners on holy days with his
censer. His more usual duty was to bear to them
the holy water, and hence he acquired the title of
aquaebajalus. This holy water consisted
of water into which, after exorcism, blest salt had
been placed, and then duly sanctified with the sign
of the cross and sacerdotal benediction. We can
see the clerk clad in his surplice setting out in
the morning of Sunday on his rounds. He is carrying
a holy-water vat, made of brass or wood, containing
the blest water, and in his hand is an aspergillum
or sprinkler. This consists of a round brush
of horse-hair with a short handle. When the clerk
arrives at the great house of the village he first
enters the kitchen, and seeing the cook engaged on
her household duties, he dips the sprinkler into the
holy-water vessel and shakes it towards her, as in
the accompanying illustration. Then he visits
the lord and lady of the manor, who are sitting at
meat in their solar, and asperges them in like manner.
For his pains he receives from every householder some
gift, and goes on his way rejoicing. Bishop Alexander,
of Coventry, however, in his constitutions drawn up
in the year 1237, ordered that no clerk who serves
in a church may live from the fees derived from this
source, and the penalty of suspension was to be inflicted
on any one who should transgress this rule. The
constitutions of the parish clerks at Trinity Church,
Coventry, made in 1462, are a most valuable source
of information with regard to the clerk’s duties.

The following items refer to the orders relating to
the holy water:

“Item, the dekyn
shall bring a woly water stoke with water
for hys preste every
Sonday for the preste to make
woly water.

“Item, the said
dekyn shall every Sonday beyr woly water of
hys chyldern to euery
howse in hys warde, and he to have hys
duty off euery man affter
hys degre quarterly.”

At the church of St. Nicholas, Bristol, in 1481, it
was ordered that the “Clerke to ordeynn spryngals[20]
for the church, and for him that visiteth the Sondays
and dewly to bere his holy water to euery howse Abyding
soo convenient a space that every man may receive hys
Holy water under payne of iiii d. tociens quociens.”